WLG gets dating advice from the ex

Posted on 06/09/10

'Rich guys have issues,’ Alex, the have-yacht trustafarian said recently. I don’t think he was excluding himself from this comment. He was advising me to date a guy on an average salary, which would probably mean he’d have to continue storing half my wardrobe and all my books for some time to come.

'Confidence can drive someone to success as much as insecurity,’ Monique responded, when I asked her thoughts on the subject over a River Café-style dinner at her Kensington flat. But then we laughed about our above-average-salaried-exes-with-issues; the guy who’d brought his pyjamas to stay over and the one whose blood-red paintings I used to joke I’d end up in if I tried to end the relationship.

My personal trainer agrees that guys who are really successful may have a few insecurities (she also trains the blood-red-painting-owning-ex). But she couldn’t help enthusing about one of her clients, who doesn’t mind admitting that she’s a gold-digger; she pays for her personal training sessions with cheques signed by various foreign names and carelessly throws her latest Louis Vuitton bag in the corner of the gym. ‘You should check out the millionaires’ website she uses,’ my trainer laughed.

The same week, I got a call from an elite matchmaking agency based in Mayfair. The lady on the other end of the line wanted to know how exclusive West London Living is. I checked out their website, which claimed to accept only the most eligible single people, charging them £10,000 for the privilege. Over dim sum at Ping Pong, I asked my friend Nick what he thought of the agency. His verdict was that it was an agency for rich men and high class escorts. Monique, on the other hand, has a friend who paid £5,000 to join an agency because she had wanted to meet someone who mixes in the same social circles as herself. Well, at least the rich can share their neurosises among themselves. Without the spare thousands, I'll have to count myself out of that circle and share my average-wage issues with someone else.